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Cleveland City Council members impatient over police hiring pace, despite plans for five cadet classes in 2018

Updated February 22, 2018 at 2:33 PM;Posted February 21, 2018 at 7:56 PM

Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams answers questions Wednesday from City Council during a budget hearing. Members of council expressed support for the police when Williams and Public Safety Director Michael McGrath appeared, but they also voiced frustration that the hiring of new officers to boost ranks on the police force is taking so long.
(Robert Higgs, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Some members of City Council expressed skepticism Wednesday that the city will be able to bolster the ranks of the police department as much as it hopes in 2018.

Generally, members of council expressed support for the police when Chief Calvin Williams and Public Safety Director Michael McGrath appeared at budget hearings, but they also voiced frustration that the hiring process is taking so long.

That frustration is bolstered by their concerns about safety on both the East Side and West Side. As Councilman Anthony Hairston put it Wednesday, "as of lately the northeast side has become the wild wild West."

The goal is to get to about 1,600 officers on the force, and Mayor Frank Jackson's budget has funding for that.

But a report presented to council a week ago showed that the city is 138 uniformed officers short of that goal. Nearly 120 of those are patrol officers.

Councilman Mike Polensek, who criticized the administration last year as dozens of jobs funded in the city budget went unfilled, doubts the city will break even in 2018 once attrition is considered.

"Based on the numbers that are in the budget, tell me how you expect to break even," Polensek asked Williams during budget hearings Wednesday.

Polensek noted that 91 people left the police department in 2017, most of them retiring. Two classes of cadets graduated during the year, yielding 71 officers.

A third class started up in 2017. It won't be finished until next month but will provide about 45 more officers.

For Williams, that's a net gain. And he expects a net gain this year, too.

The city estimates about 75 officers could retire.

Councilman Matt Zone, who chairs council's safety committee, said he thinks it will take until 2020 to get up to full force, but expects the city will show progress this year.

Five cadet classes are planned for 2018. They could yield as many as 250 officers. The last of those classes, though, likely would not finish before 2019.

"I think our numbers do add up," Williams told City Council. "We're going to make sure we hire as many people as are available."

Part of the problem is that it takes time to hire police officers. From recruitment through training to joining the police force can take a full year or more. Six months of that time is training required by the state, Williams said.

New Councilman Basheer Jones, who's Ward 7 includes Hough, St. Clair-Superior and other neighborhoods, said part of the problem is that the police do not have a good relationship with the community.

There are levels of distrust that have built for years, culminating in the city agreeing to a consent decree with the federal Justice Department over excessive use of force.

Jones lamented that a program at Martin Luther King Jr. High School that helped groom potential recruits had fallen by the wayside.

"You have to look at it from a historical context," Jones said. "Why aren't people from this community applying.

"If we're serious about recruiting, putting a billboard up is not sufficient," Jones said. "We have to start with high school students and get them the idea that they could be officers."